1974 TCS Bonnet

[TCS4605R]

Attached is a photo of the underside of my bonnet at the latch end.  There was a strip of steel secured to the vertical lip of the bonnet with (6) pop rivets.  You can see the pop rivet holes in the edge of the bonnet with the strip of steel laying on the bonnet.  There is a weird 'bend' near the middle of the strip of steel, the bend does not look useful.  Does anyone else have the this strip of steel on their car???

Tom

[BDA]

It's hard for me to understand the 'bend' your piece has. From the picture, it looks like a chunk was taken out of it. I checked my car and that steel piece appears to be 'flat' and rectangular. I think it's just there to provide strength for the lock so the tab of the lock can't break through the fiberglass. The tab of the lock should rub or almost rub on that strip so that it doesn't bang against it in a bump.

You didn't ask, but there should be a steel piece with a slot that is popped, I think, to the body where the tab of the lock goes through. Under that steel piece is a rubber piece that keeps the weather out of car.

I hope that helps.

[TCS4605R]

BDA

The bend I mention looks like someone grabbed the steel strip with a pair of needle nose vise grips and twisted it - hard to see in the photo.  When you close the bonnet, the locking tab goes over the top of the steel strip.  I think the purpose you mentioned is correct - the steel strip reinforces the bonnet lip so the locking tab does not break the fiberglass.  This was not the original bonnet for my car - the original evidently was destroyed when the PO drove it into the back of a Buick.  I'm the second owner after Checkpoint American (remember them) grafted on a new front clip and installed this bonnet on the car.  My steel strip is pretty rusted, so I'll replace it, probably with a powder coated aluminum piece.  I'm now trying the adjust the gaps between the bonnet and the surrounding area and trying the get the bonnet surface to be flush with the rest of the car.  It doesn't look like Lotus was not too concerned about panel gaps and fit.

Tom

[BDA]

Indeed, I do remember Checkpoint America (I remember it as 'Dan Gurney's Checkpoint America' or some such). There was one in St. Louis and they fixed a short for me when my car was new and on its first real drive. The wrench who fixed it found my workshop manual and noted in the wiring diagram that he replaced a wire with one of a different color. I remember they had a beautiful Elite in the showroom!

Your aluminum strip should be sufficient. I would think that you could use the rectangular dimensions of the original piece.

As for Lotus's concern for panel gaps and fit --- welcome to Lotus Land!!! My bonnet is best lowered by one corner so that one corner falls into place first rather than straight down. It's a little bit skewed but there's nothing to be done about it as there's no adjustment. It's all that lightness Chunky added, don't you know.
 

[TCS4605R]

Dan Gurney's Checkpoint America - St. Louis is where I bought my car in 1978.  Bob (last name withheld to protect the guilty) told me (after I asked if the car had ever had accident damage) that no, no accident damage.  I later found out that Bob was responsible for grafting the front clip onto the car and replacing the damaged bonnet.  It really did not matter as I would have bought the car anyway if he had not so seriously strayed from the truth.  Probably the guy who fixed your short was Howard Erlinger, Howard moved on from Checkpoint American and now has his own shop (Sports Car Centre in Fenton, MO) since the early 1980's.

Tom

[BDA]

Interesting story! It's sad that Bob so completely lied to you! That can surely leave a bad taste in your mouth. Hopefully, he at least did a decent job of grafting the front of your car on the body!

I had gotten my car from the Lotus distributorship in New Orleans and the wrench there installed a set of driving lights inside the nose with little windows popped into holes under the bumper. That meant that the spare tire didn't fit where it was meant to and while driving up to St. Louis on the first leg of my trip (where I was going to watch an IMSA race at Mid America), the driving lights created the aforementioned short. I called back to the distributorship and told them what happened. I'm sure they called Checkpoint America and requested that they work on my car first thing in the morning. They did and in a few hours I was on the road again. I have no idea if Howard fixed my car but if you suspect it, there's a good chance of it. I left happy with the great service. It's too bad yours wasn't as positive.

[Grumblebuns]

The chunk missing from your strip may have been done at the factory. I checked three TCS front bonnets that I could access and two have strips intact, the third has a very small section cut out of it. I'm assuming to make up for poor positioning of the strip during assembly. All of the benefits of a post lunch, low production hand, assembled car  .

[Chuck Nukem]

Does your hood have much lateral flex along the back edge now that the steel plate is out? The hood on my TC has the steel plate and is a bit ill fitting. My hood bows up in the center of that edge and does not mate flush with the car. Can that plate be used as an adjustment? It appears that my car was also hit pretty severely at the left front end (took out up to a foot behind the headlight). A tree also fell on my hood and punctured it at one point.  I'm no genius, but that could have something to do with my alignment issues.

[BDA]

If the body is repaired outside of an original mold (which is all the time), there is always the chance that there will be some misalignment. I believe I introduced some when I repaired the mounting surface of the driver side headlight on my car. That headlight must be pretty much adjusted to it's limit to get the height correct. I keyed my repair off the remaining pieces but the only way I could make it really right was to make sure that the repair was in the same plane as the mounting surface of the other side. Not easily done in my garage.

If your bonnet was repaired, that could be a cause some alignment issues. I don't think the metal piece will provide you with much adjustment since you have to work with the dimensions of the lock, but there may be some. I think there is more opportunity with the latch slot in the body. You might be able to mount the metal piece and the rubber seal lower so that your bonnet fits more flush.

My bonnet is original and unmolested as is the surrounding body work and the rear edge (by the windshield) is about 1/8" above the body. I described earlier how it is a little skewed so the passenger's side edge toward the rear is a tighter fit than the driver's side edge even though the front is pretty even on each side. It has always been thus. The boot fits worse though I think I can get it to fit a bit better, I don't think I will be able to get it to sit flush the entire length. That's not to say all fit that way or that there are not examples where they fit much better. Such is the state of fit and finish for a Europa TC.

If moving the slot in the body for the lock doesn't work, since we're dealing with fiberglass, it's pretty easy to make changes and with the proper motivation and patience, you might be able to get it to fit much better.

[TCS4605R]

I think an attempt was made to align my bonnet.  The latch (flat metal piece that the lock rotates) on mine was obviously bent to improve the vertical alignment, but really did not help much.  I think I'll flatten the piece out as it should be and try to figure out why the bonnet will not lay flush with the surrounding fiberglass.  I have a gallon of Evercoat 'Everglass' to fill the uneven gap to get it down to an even 5 mm.  As for Checkpoint America and the 'no damage' claim, I have replaced the frame.  Checkpoint had obviously separated the body and frame as the body was held to the frame with 5/16" bolts rather than 3/8" bolts probably to make it easier to drop the 5/16 " bolts in place and the cross piece at the front top of the frame had a new piece of metal welded onto it, a repair that could not have been made with the body on the frame.

[BDA]

Maybe that's why that Checkpoint America is no longer!